A vehicle mounts side mirrors and a rear view mirror for confirming its peripheral condition. However, there exist blind corners where confirming the outside view is not possible from the driver's seat due to the vehicle construction, even with using these mirrors. In an attempt to minimize such blind corners, some vehicles are mounted with additional mirrors (mounted e.g. near the engine hood or the rear gate). Even with using such additional mirrors, it is still not easy to eliminate the blind corners completely. Moreover, mounting of such additional mirrors impairs the aesthetic appearance of the vehicle. In view of these problems, in recent years, there has been utilized a technique of confirming the peripheral condition of the vehicle with using vehicle periphery images (photographed image) obtained by cameras mounted at respective portions of the vehicle (e.g. Patent Documents 1-4, etc.)
According to the technique disclosed in Patent Documents 1-3, an icon comprising a graphically rendered image of the self-vehicle is laid at the center of a display image and photographic images obtained by cameras mounted on the vehicle are subject to coordinate conversion to be rendered into images taken from a viewing potion from the perpendicularly upward direction of the vehicle and these images are shown around the icon, thereby to allow monitoring of the periphery of the vehicle.
Further, an image display apparatus for a vehicle described in Patent Document 4 is comprised of a plurality of cameras mounted on the vehicle. With this image display apparatus for a vehicle, based on photographic images obtained by the plurality of cameras, a projection image projected from a predetermined viewing point upwardly of the vehicle is generated. Then, graphic data of the vehicle from the viewing point upwardly of the vehicle are displayed in superposition on the generated projection image.